“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when
we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.
lives.””
-Tony Robbins
FROM

A SMALL BANK WITH

0.87
GRANTED)

DEPOSITS AND ADVANCES OF
CRORES

(ONLY

LOANS

TO BECOMING A GIANT IN THE
BANKING SECTOR THROUGH
CONSTANT EMERGENCE UNDER
SEVERE CIRCUMSTANCES,

BANK

OF INDIA IS A

STATE
GLIMMER-

ING EXAMPLE OF SUSTENANCE

customers and its willingness to fulfill
it. Only sometime in the late 80s/90s,
we seemed to falter. All that the Bank
has done by way
of organizational restructuri n g ,
strategies,
etc., has
always
b e e n
keeping
the customers’
needs in
focus. Financial

other 2000 new branches this year.
Most of these branches are in the rural and semi-urban areas, where, we
believe, there is an increasing need for
financial products and services at an
affordable cost,” says Bhatt. The SBI
Tiny Card, which is a smart card operated through a hand held device with
the Business Correspondent, enables
the rural account holder to deposit or
withdraw cash even if the branch is at
a remote location. This is one example
of taking technology to the masses.

strength, immaculate systems and procedures, adherence to business ethics
of trust and transparency, good corporate governance, use of modern
techniques, skilled and dedicated
workforce and above all, good customer service, are the main factors that
have seen the SBI pass through the
test of time.”

Financials

BECAUSE OF STRONG
COMMITMENT AND PERFECT
VISION.

The origins of the State Bank of
India go back to the first decade
of the 19th century when the Bank
of Calcutta was established in 1806,
and three years later received its
charter as the Presidency Bank of
Bengal. The aim was to mobilize
credit both for the East India
Company’s Government in Bengal
as well as the European merchants,
and to stabilize rates of interest. It
was the first joint stock bank enjoying limited liability, set up in British India with government sponsorship. It was followed by the
Presidency Bank of Bombay in
1840 and Madras in 1843. The
three banks were merged in
1921 to create an all-India Bank
– the Imperial Bank of India –
to extend banking facilities and
render the money resources of India more accessible to the country’s
trade and commerce. In 1955, by
an Act of Parliament the Imperial Bank of India was nationalized to create the State Bank of
India (1 July) as the major banking arm of the Government.
Commenting on the bank’s ability
to deliver consistently while meeting
high levels of expectations, even during times of the British raj, SBI
Chairman O. P. Bhatt opines, “The
main factor has been the ability of
the Bank to grasp the need of its

Future plans
The primary objective of the bank is
to monitor and increase its lead position in existing businesses i.e. SSI,
SME, Home Loans, Education Loans,
Auto Loans and Agri Business. In the
Mid-Corp Group, the focus will be to
increase its fee income significantly.
The bank is also focusing on reduction in transaction costs by increasing
usage of alternative channels – viz.
Smart Cards, Internet Banking,
ATMs, Mobile Banking etc. Its Corporate Banking business is also being put on the fast track.
“We view Financial Inclusion as
a huge opportunity rather than
an obligation and have drawn
up our branch expansion
plans accordingly. During
2007-08 alone, we opened
as many as 954 new
branches and we will
be opening
a n -

As of March 2008, SBI has 10,270
offices with 1,79, 205 employees with
deposits and advances touching Rs
9,54,172 crores and net profit of Rs
6,729 crores.

Recent Spotlight
‘The Banker’ Magazine, London has
ranked SBI 57th (up
from 70 th
last year and
107 the
year before)
among
t h e
T o p
1000
banks
in the
world.

PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK

Varietitan

“V
ariety’s the very spice of life, that ggives
ives it all its flavor” - William Cowper
“Variety’s
WITH

OVER

37

MILLION SATISFIED

4598 OFFICES,
PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK

CUSTOMERS AND
TODAY,

IS AT THE TOP AMONGST

NATIONALISED BANKS IN TERMS
OPERATING AND NET PROFIT,
BUSINESS, ASSETS SIZE AND
NUMBER OF BRANCHES. THROUGH
TIME, THE BANK HAS REFLECTED A
OF

CERTAIN ÉLAN IN ITS PERSONALITY
BUILT WITH THE VARIED FLAVOURS
OF INNOVATION, UNDERSTANDING
AND FORESIGHT.

Since its humble beginning in 1895
with the
distinction
of being
the first Ind i a n
Bank to
h a v e
b e e n
started
with Indian
capital,
PNB has

achieved significant growth in business
which at the end of March 2008
amounted to Rs.2,85,959 crore.
Established by far-sighted visionaries and patriots, like Lala Lajpat Rai,
E C Jessawala, Babu Kali Prasono Roy,
Lala Harkishan Lal and Sardar Dyal
Singh Majithia, as the first bank, fully
owned, managed and administered by
Indians. The bank shifted its registered
office from Lahore to Delhi in 1947
and was nationalised in 1969. With the
passage of time, six private banks Bhagwan Das Bank Ltd (1940), Bharat
Bank Ltd (1951), Indo Commercial
Bank Ltd (1961), Universal Bank Ltd.
(1961), Hindustan Commercial Bank
Ltd (1986), Nedungadi Bank Ltd
(2003) and one nationalised bank New Bank of India (1993) were
merged with PNB.
The strong fundamentals, combined
with the franchise value enjoyed by the
bank and technological resources, are
expected to help in making a further
leap in business. The bank enjoys com-

petitive advantages in the form of
higher share of low cost deposits, robust risk management, strong technology base, large customer base and
thorough understanding of the market. The guiding principles of financial prudence, business ethics and customers welfare have stood the bank in
good stead in the 113 years of its existence.

Future Plans
The bank has been focussing on expanding its operations outside India
and has identified some of the
emerging economies which offer
large business potential. The bank
has set up representative offices at
Almaty: Kazakhistan, Shanghai:
China and London. Besides
these, the bank has opened a
full fledged Branch in Kabul,
Afghanistan.
“Keeping in tune with
changing times and to provide its customers more efficient and speedy service,
the Bank has taken major initiatives in the field
of computerization. All
the Branches of the
Bank have been computerized. The Bank
has also aggressively
launched the concept
of “Any Time, Any
Where Banking” through
the introduction of Centralized Banking Solution (CBS)
and over 2409 offices have already been brought under its
ambit. PNB has also introduced
Online Payment Facility for railway reservation through
IRCTC Payment Gateway
Project and Online Utility Bill
Payment Services which allows
Internet Banking account holders to pay their telephone, mobile, electricity, insurance
and other bills anytime
from anywhere from their
desktop,” said Dr. K.C. Chakrabarty,

Chairman & Managing Director,
Punjab National Bank.
Another step taken by PNB in meeting the changing aspirations of its clientele is the launch of its Debit card,
which is also an ATM card. It enables
the card holder to buy goods and services at over 99270 merchant establishments across the country. Besides,
the card can be used to withdraw cash
at more than 25000 ATMs, where
the ‘Maestro’ logo is displayed, apart from over
1094 PNB ATMs and tie up
arrangements with other
Banks.

Financials
The
full
year Net Profit
for 2007-08
rose by 33.03
percent to Rs
2048.76 crore.
For the full
year 2007-08,
operating
profit of the
bank crossed
the Rs 4000
crore landmark
to reach Rs
4006.24 crore
registering a
YOY growth of
10.75%. During
2007-08, the Net Interest Income (NII)
increased by 6.16 percent to Rs 5534.16
crore (Rs 5213.24 crore
during 2006-07).

Recent
Spotlight
Punjab National
Bank is negotiating
with Visa Inc. to start
independent credit
card services for its
37 million customers.

SCRIPTED IN CORPORATE WISDOM
AND SOCIAL PRIDE. IT IS A STORY
CRAFTED IN PRIVATE CAPITAL,
PRINCELY PATRONAGE AND STATE
OWNERSHIP. IT IS ABOUT VISIONARY BANKERS AND THEIR EX-

Between 1968 and 1978, the Bank recorded a tremendous growth crossing the turnover of Rs 3,100 crore. By
1978-end, the Bank spread its wings in
terms of 1,365 branches from 333, a
decade ago. With its new logo “The
Baroda Sun”, its visibility and brand
value have improved significantly.

TRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTION IN
THE ASCENT OF

BARODA

BANK

OF

TO THE FORMIDABLE

HEIGHTS OF CORPORATE
GLORY.

THE

SPIRIT HAS BEEN

INDOMITABLE AND THE
JOURNEY IS GOING STRONG BY
THE DAY.

For Bank of Baroda, it has been
a long and eventful journey across
100 years and 27 countries. Starting in 1908 and backed by the vision of the founding father, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, it has
come a long way from a small building in Baroda to its new hi-rise and
hi-tech Baroda Corporate Centre in Mumbai.
“Bank of Baroda’s growth could
not have been possible without an
effective structural leadership at
the top and functional leadership at various levels in the
Bank, right since its inception,
that took the Bank to the unprecedented heights of success
bit by bit over the 100-year period.
It was the visionary capability and
leadership qualities of the people
who held strategic positions in the
organization that really saw Bank
of Baroda through the test of
time,” feels M.D. Mallya, Chairman & M.D, Bank of Baroda. The
Bank started with about 20 people
and a meager turnover of Rs 40 lakh.
By the time, India achieved its Independence, the Bank had grown its
business manifold reaching the level
of over Rs 50 crore with 38 branches
and manpower of more than 1,200.

Future Plans
As the Bank stands at the threshold
of its next century, “marketing” would
become a key growth driver. The thrust
areas would be on enhancing sales and
raising brand equity through continuous market research for information.
“The existing sales structure
needs to be expanded. We
are currently working out a
strategic mass communication and events plan for
the financial year 2008-09,
focused towards brand
enhancement. Significant initiatives in customer education are
also envisaged in the
coming year for our CRM
initiatives,” says Mallya.
The Bank will have primary
thrust on improving its
NIM by increasing
the CASA
share.

The emphasis would be on improving
the share of Retail/SME businesses
with high asset quality.
“We will continue leveraging technology/re-branding exercise to extract
maximum benefits. Targeting on improving non-interest income through
innovative Wealth Management Products would be pursued vigorously. We
shall place our thrust on business process reengineering to reduce the transaction costs, with a dedicated effort to
add 2.5 to 3.0 million quality customers to the bank’s book in 2008-09 and
also in subsequent years,” says Mallya.

Financials
Touching the global customer base
of more than 33 million, the Bank has
comfortably crossed the global business level of Rs 2,50,000 crore by endMarch 2008 reflecting a growth
of 24%.

Recent Spotlight
In July this year, the
Bank announced its
plan to open 10 new
overseas branches
across the globe. The
bank also announced
a slew of other initiatives including the
opening of 21 branches
across the country.

4

August 27

I 2008

TATA STEEL

Trustitan

“Without trust, words become the hollow sound of a wooden gong. With trust, words
become life itself
itself..”- Anonymous
STEEL

SIGNIFIES STRENGTH.

IT

FORTIFIES BELIEF AND EVEN LENDS
SUPPORT TO MANY DREAMS. IT
SURE IS AN ALLOY, BUT IT HAS
LIVED A LIFE OF BENEVOLENCE. IT
HAS SHAPED THE FUTURE OF

versified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and commercial
presence in over 50 countries.
Through investments in Corus, a
subsidiary of
Tata Steel,
Millennium
Steel (renamed Tata
Steel Thai-

raw materials security through joint
ventures in Thailand, Australia,
Mozambique, Ivory Coast and Oman.
Exploration of opportunities in titanium dioxide business in Tamil Nadu,
ferro-chrome plant in South Africa
and setting up of a deep-sea port in
coastal Orissa are integral to the
growth and globalisation objective of
Tata Steel.

land) and NatSteel Asia, Singapore,
Tata Steel has created a manufacturing and marketing network in Europe,
South East Asia and the Pacific-rim
countries. Corus, which manufactured
over 20 Million Tonnes (MT) of steel
in 2008, has operations in the UK, the
Netherlands, Germany, France, Norway and Belgium. Tata Steel (Thailand) is the largest producer of long
steel products in Thailand, with a
manufacturing capacity of 1.7 MT.
NatSteel Asia produces about 2 MT
of steel products annually across its
regional operations in seven countries.
Tata Steel, through its joint venture
with Tata BlueScope Steel
Limited, has also entered the steel building and construction applications market.
The iron ore
mines
and
collieries in India give the
Company a distinct advantage
in raw material
sourcing. Tata
Steel is also
striving towards

Future Plans

COUNTRIES AND COUNTLESS
LIVES; IT STILL DOES.

BUT

THE

PRECISION OF MAGIC LIES IN
THE EYES OF THE KEEN
BEHOLDER.

TATA

KNEW THE

MAGIC QUITE WELL.

Dreams are unreal, but few make
it real to absolute perfection. Tata
Steel is one among those companies which strived to give dreams a
real shape. The origins and ascent
of Tata Steel, which has culminated
into the century long history of an
industrial empire, emerge from the
illustrious efforts of India’s original iron man and the remarkable
people who thereafter, have kept the
fire burning - Jamsetji Nusserwanji
Tata.
Established in 1907, Tata
Steel is the world’s 6th
largest steel company
with an existing annual crude steel capacity of 30 million
tonnes. Asia’s first
integrated steel
plant and India’s largest integrated private
sector steel company, is
now the world’s second
most geographically di-

Tata Steel plans to grow and globalise
through organic and inorganic routes.
Its 6.8 million tonnes per annum
(MTPA) Jamshedpur Works plans to
achieve 10 MT capacity by 2010.
Tata Steel also has plans for a 1.2
MTPA Metcoke project in West Bengal, Deep sea port in Dhamra, Orissa,
Titanium Dioxide project in Tamil
Nadu, and a Joint Venture with
BlueScope Steel for metallic coating
and painting steel unit. Overseas plans
include development of a source of low
ash coal from Queensland, Australia;
Ferro Chrome production in Richards
Bay, South Africa; Coking Coal project
in Mozambique; Development of iron
ore deposits in Ivory Coast; and a
Limestone mining project in Oman.

Financials
The net sales/income from Operations for Tata Steel was Rs. 131,535.88
Crores for the year ending 31st March
2008. The Net Profit was Rs 12,321.76
crores for the same period.

Recent Spotlight
Vietnam Steel Corporation
(Vietnam’s largest steel company),
Vietnam Cement Industries Corporation (Vicem) and Tata Steel recently
signed a Joint Venture Agreement
(JVA) for the proposed steel
complex in Vietnam today. This
4.5 MT per year steel complex will be set up in the
Vung Ang Economic Zone
in Ha Tinh Province.

BANK OF INDIA

Innovatitan

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows
resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
wealth.”” - Peter FF.. Drucker
BEGINNING WITH ONE OFFICE IN
MUMBAI, WITH A PAID-UP CAPITAL
OF RS.50 LAKH AND 50 EMPLOYEES, BANK OF INDIA HAS TAKEN
RAPID STRIDES TOWARDS GROWTH
THROUGH CONSTANT INNOVATION ;
BLOSSOMING INTO A MIGHTY
INSTITUTION WITH A STRONG
NATIONAL PRESENCE AND SIZABLE
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS.

A diverse group of Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, and Jews helped establish
the present Bank of India in 1906. It
was the first bank in India promoted
by Indian interests to serve all the communities of India. At the time, banks
in India were either owned by Europeans who served mainly the interests
of the European merchant
houses or by different
communities which served
the banking needs of their
own community.
The lead promoter of
the Bank of India was Sir
Sassoon J. David. The first
board of directors of the
bank consisted of Sir
Sassoon David, Sir
Cowasjee Jehangir, J.
Cowasjee Jehangir, Sir
Frederick Leigh Croft,
Ratanjee Dadabhoy
Tata,
Gordhandas
Khattau, Lalubhai
Samaldas, Khetsety
Khiasey, Ramnarain
Hurnundrai, Jenarrayen
Hindoomull
Dani,
Noordin Ebrahim
Noordin.

The promoters incorporated the
Bank of India on 7 September, 1906
under Act VI of 1882. It was under
private ownership and control till July
1969 when it was nationalised along
with 13 other banks.
The Bank has 2891 branches and 89
extension counters in India spread
over all states/ union territories including 137 specialised branches. These
branches are controlled through 48
Zonal Offices. There are 27 branches/
offices (including three representative
offices) abroad.
According to T.S.Narayanasami,
Chairman & Managing Director, Bank
of India, the Bank came out with its
maiden public issue in 1997 and followed with Qualified Institutions
Placement in February 2008. “The Total number of shareholders as on 30th
June 2008 is 2,29,000,” he says.
While firmly adhering to a policy of
prudence and caution, the Bank has
been in the forefront of introducing
various innovative services and systems. Business has been conducted
with
the successful blend
of traditional values and ethics
and the most
modern infrastructure. The
Bank has been

the first among the nationalised banks
to establish a fully computerised
branch and ATM facility at the
Mahalaxmi Branch at Mumbai way
back in 1989. The Bank is also a
Founder Member of SWIFT in India.
It pioneered the introduction of the
Health Code System in 1982, for evaluating/ rating its credit portfolio.
Bank of India is a founder member
of SWIFT (Society for World-wide Inter Bank Financial Telecommunications) in India which facilitates provision of cost-effective financial processing and communication services.
It was the first Indian Bank to open
a branch outside the country, at London in 1946, and also the first to open
a branch in Europe- Paris in 1974. The
Bank has sizable presence abroad at
key banking and financial centres viz.
London, New York, Paris, Tokyo,
Hong-Kong, and Singapore.

Financials
The total income of the bank for
the quarter ending 30th June 2008 was
Rs 4114.74 crores as compared to
Rs 3108.41 crores for the same quarter last year. The Net Profit for the
quarter was Rs 561.95 crores compared to Rs 315.20 crores last year.

Recent Spotlight
The Bank has also opened the
first Branch of its subsidiary, Bank
of India (Tanzania) Ltd at Dar-esSalaam.